Ben Opie is my oldest friend in Pittsburgh.  His band, Watershed 5tet, played at the 14 Karat Cabaret in BalTimOre sometime between 1992 & 1994.  I was in the audience & loved the music.  Then Ben & co went to the bkstore that I co-owned, Normal's, & we got to know each other better.  When I moved to Pittsburgh in January of 1996, Ben was 1 of the 1st people I started collaborating w/.  Ben's a fantastic reed player & an all-around great musician (not to mention an extremely nice guy).  In fact, I think that 2 of the solos I've had the pleasure of hearing/seeing Ben perform have possibly been the 2 best sax solos I've ever heard ANYONE play - & I listen to alotof music.  One of these was @ the Space Gallery & one was a part of the "why are music series" organized by Johan Nystrom @ Monk's Gallery.  When I was asked by Mike Maraden to contribute a silent movie to November 30, 2012's "Sync'd 5" (in the Strip District in PGH) & was told that Ben wd be 1 of the musicians providing a live soundtrack for it, I immediately decided to make a film that wd be a score for Ben & also a sortof retrospective homage to him.  W/ this in mind, I cataloged all the footage that I have of him playing music (spanning 15 yrs) & organized it in chronological order.  I then took a saxophone fingering chart & built the movie around matching footage from my Opie archive w/ each note of the alto sax range (as represented in the chart - excluding notes off-the-chart).  The silent version of the result was projected at Sync'd 5 w/ Ben playing live & I shot footage of this that was then combined w/ the silent version to produce the movie as presented here.  - December 2, 2012 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE  

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